The evolution of medicine, and in particular, of interventional medicine, has led to the development of complex systems integrating patient monitoring sub-systems, imaging systems encompassing several modalities such as x-ray, MRI, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, and optical systems providing various close views of the anatomy being operated on. Additional sub-systems are often required, depending on the specifies of a given medical intervention. As an example, ablation means are often employed in the treatment of various lesions.
Within the field of interventional medicine, the recent trend has been toward the development and deployment of minimally invasive intervention systems include navigation systems, such as the Niobe™ magnetic navigation system developed by Stereotaxis, St. Louis, Mo. Such systems typically comprise an imaging means for real-time guidance and monitoring of the intervention; additional feedback is provided by a three-dimensional (3D) localization system that allows real-time determination of the catheter or interventional device tip position and orientation with respect to the operating room and, through co-registered imaging, with respect to the patient.
As a more specific example of complex interventions only recently made possible, the availability of methods and systems for safe, efficient minimally invasive interventions have greatly impacted and changed the practice of cardiac treatment delivery in the last decade. The treatment of a number of cardiac disorders has become possible without requiring open heart surgery. In particular, minimally invasive vascular and chamber navigation devices and systems have evolved to the point that a great number of heart conditions, such as electrical disorders of the heart rhythm, and arterial-related conditions, such as angina pectoris and heart tissue ischemia, can now be diagnosed and treated through the insertion and navigation of thin elongated devices through an arterial or venous incision and to the region of interest.
As methods and technologies evolve, the range and complexity of conditions amenable to minimally invasive diagnosis and treatment has increased. As a specific example, the field of medical device endo-lumen and endocardiac navigation is greatly specialized, and experts need mastery of disciplines at the cross-road of science, medicine, and engineering to bring about the best outcomes. Due to the risks intrinsic to cardiac surgery and similar procedures, the availability of training and teaching tools, the capability to remotely attend live interventions, and the tools required to allow a remote user to take control of an intervention, are key in the development of the next generation of practitioners and the safe and effective performance of complex operations.
Technology has been developed to enable physicians, call center representatives, and other attendant staff to remotely access multiple live, high resolution displays necessary to monitor and perform medical procedures. Each display and associated controls presents image or other graphic or text data relevant to a sub-system, and a user-interface (UIF) associated with that display enables control of that sub-system. One of the technology evolution challenges is to find a way to remotely view a number of high refresh rate, high resolution medical displays via a network with reasonable bandwidth requirements for broad distribution to medical centers around the world. While many technologies exist today to convert the data stream into data packets, intrinsic network limitation and high information contents provided by a multiplicity of required sub-system components stretch the limits of currently available compression technologies. Other technologies that fail to appropriately compress the video screen include Keyboard-Video-Mouse Transmitter/Receiver Pair (KVM) which attempts to send every pixel via the network causing artifacts limiting the quality and refresh rate, so that live medical information can not be properly interpreted. In addition to display information, keyboard, mouse, and other interfaces or input devices data streams should be transmitted in synchrony with the video or graphic data transmission.
Recently, approaches have been proposed to integrate the output data streams of a collection of information sources associated with a complex medical system, such as a minimally invasive navigation system, and to facilitate single-point command and control of the various sub-system information sources through an integrated, combined workstation system comprising image, graphics, and text display and input and command interface means. For example, patent application Ser. No. 11/484,883 entitled “System and network for remote medical procedures” and included by reference in its entirety describes and claims a system with a central control center with controls for each of a plurality of navigation systems, and patent application Ser. No. 11/670,930 entitled “Global input device for multiple computer-controlled medical systems,” included by reference in its entirety, describes and claims a composite display with seamless cursor movement. The bandwidth necessary for data transfer from each of the controlled sub-systems to an integrated composite display and control workstation is generally not a limitation, as typically at least one such composite workstation will be located in the vicinity of the complex system and associated sub-systems. However practical and economical means required achieving the objectives described above for training, teaching, proctoring, and other such related objectives, are not currently available.